Tag: Tim Lee

Since intellectual property law and cocktails are a recurring topic here, it’s worth mentioning a couple recent developments. First, the tiki-themed craft cocktail bar Painkiller in New York has been forced to change its name to PKNY after Pusser’s rum sued over its use of the name Painkiller, a pre-existing cocktail that the company trademarked:

In the lawsuit filed April 12 in U.S. District Court, plaintiff Pusser’s Rum Ltd., which sells rum, cocktail mixers and rum products such as cakes under the brand name “Painkiller” sued tiki bar owners Giuseppe Gonzalez and Richard Boccato, claiming irreparable harm to its brand, unfair competition and unfair business practices, according to court documents on file in the Southern District of New York. […]

The plaintiffs demanded that the bar stop calling itself and any of its drinks by the name Painkiller, for which they hold two U.S. trademarks, one for “alcoholic fruit drinks with fruit juices and cream of coconut and coconut juice,” and one for “non-alcoholic mixed fruit juices,” which they market as “Pusser’s Painkiller Cocktail Mix.” […]

In a consent order signed by both parties May 16, Gonzalez and Boccato, along with their corporate entity, Essex Street Bar & Lounge, Inc., agreed to be “permanently restrained and enjoined” from using the trademarked term Painkiller or “any other confusingly similar term” in association with any bar, restaurant, grill, lounge or other establishment, or any “beverage, libation or cocktail” unless it is made with Pusser’s rum. They also agreed not to use the term in any marketing or advertising materials, and to give up their website domain within 45 days of the order, though the court did not require them to turn it over to Pusser’s.

Similarly, Portland’s own Trader Tiki has been forced to change the name of his line of syrups to B. G. Reynolds. He doesn’t name the company that would object to his marketing a line of tiki syrups with “Trader” in the name, but if you’re into cocktails you can probably make a good guess who that might be. (Side note: Why do these disputes always seem to involve rum and tiki companies?)

About a year ago, I was approached by the owners of another company of similar name, and asked cordially to stop calling myself a Trader and go off and do something else. I fought tooth and nail, but they weren’t having it. So, in respect to the original “Trader”, and with the advice of a few good friends, I am moving forward with the name change from Trader Tiki’s Exotic Syrups to B.G. Reynolds’ Exotic Syrups.

Naturally this is creating some ill will in the cocktail community, at least in the direction of Pusser’s, which is getting blasted on Twitter today. This is part of a general backlash against trademarking cocktail names (see the conflict over the Dark and Stormy). There’s also a lot of confusion over copyright and trademarks. Tim Lee helpfully clarified the difference last year:

But perhaps the most important difference is that trademarks have a dramatically different policy rationale from patents and copyrights. Copyrights and patents are designed to create legal monopolies that drive up the price of creative works and thereby reward authors and inventors for their creativity. Although consumers may benefit from the resulting increase in creativity, the short-term effect is to force them to pay more than they would in a competitive market. Trademarks aren’t like that at all. The point is not to limit competition. To the contrary, the point is to enhance competition by ensuring that consumers know what they’re getting. This is why it’s emphatically legal to run comparative advertising featuring your competitor’s trademarks. Microsoft may own the “Windows” trademark, but Apple is free to use it as a punching bag as long as they don’t mislead consumers about what they’re getting.

The same principle applies in the Dark and Stormy case. The point of trademark law is to make sure consumers know what they’re getting (whether it’s Gosling or Zaya), not to give Gosling a monopoly on the concept of mixing ginger beer with rum. I haven’t seen Zaya’s ad and I’m not a trademark lawyer, so I don’t want to speculate on the legal merits of Gosling’s position. But certainly the apparentl purpose of Zaya’s ad—encouraging bartenders to substitute their own rum in place of Gosling’s—is entirely within the spirit of trademark law. If the net effect of Gosling’s threats is that consumers wind up with fewer opportunities to try mixing ginger beer with different kinds of rum, that is certainly not what trademark law is supposed to accomplish.

This is a matter of trademark law, not copyright. The company actively markets and owns a trademark to a product called Pusser’s Painkiller Cocktail Mix. So while it was arguably excessive of them to sue a tiki bar with the same name, it’s not totally implausible that the bar might create confusion among customers.

A more concerning part of the settlement is the requirement that PKNY no longer offer any drink called a Painkiller that doesn’t use Pusser’s rum. Though the settlement doesn’t bind anyone else, liquor companies would love to be able to trademark popular cocktails and forbid bars from substituting other brands. This is part of what was behind the Dark and Stormy dispute, and there are rumors of one whiskey brand sending cease and desist orders to bars advertising a classic drink of the same name if they don’t use their product (I haven’t been able to confirm this, so I’m not naming it here). If this strategy continues, that would be potentially be much more restrictive of bartenders’ creativity. Whatever the legal merits of the case, Pusser’s deserves all the scorn their receiving for forcing use of their rum in a cocktail that they didn’t invent.

Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, bartender, cocktail consultant, and magician in Portland, Oregon, and the author of Cocktails on Tap: The Art of Mixing Spirits and Beer. His articles have appeared in the print or online editions of The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Times, Reason, The Oregonian, Eater, and other publications. [Photo by Michael Ingram.]Image Source:kissmiss